Tag: mobile memory

We reported last week that DRAM for PC desktops is under clear pressure, with continuing price drops expected until the end of this year and beyond.

But the same isn’t true of mobile memory, according to market research company Trendforce.

Analysts said that this segment saw 7.7 percent growth in the second quarter, compared to the first quarter of this year, amounting to shipments worth $3.851 billion. And that won’t be the end of it because prices are expected to continue rising.

The introduction of the next generation of mobile memory, LPDDR4 has caused average selling prices to rise.

The clear leader in shipments for mobile DRAM is Samsung, which has installed the latest memory types into its premier smartphones, the Galaxy S6 and the S6 Edge.

Samsung also managed to reduce its dependency on DRAM for PCs and that now only accounts for 20 percent of its shipments.

Trendforce believes that PC memory will fall by as much as 30 percent during the third quarter, and is relying on Apple using the latest mobile memory to keep its profit margin high.

Samsung had a 57.6 share of the market during the second quarter, way ahead of SK Hynix (23.9%), Micron (16.5%), Nanya (1.2%) and Winbond (0.7%).

Putting this into geographical terms, Korea held 81.5 percent of this sector, America – that is to say Micron 16.5 percent, while the Taiwanese vendors only held two percent market share during the period.

Kingston Technology and Phison Electronics will be spinning off their respective embedded business units and combine them into a joint venture.

We got wind of the rumour at Digitimes which said the pair will supply eMMC, MCP and other mobile memory products for use in smartphones and tablet PCs in a bid to compete with Samsung.

The official line from Kingston is that it won’t comment. Europe’s not aware of what’s going on in the East so we are not able to confirm or deny – but we wouldn’t be surprised. It seems like a reasonable move.

Kingston already has resources in NAND flash and mobile RAM, however in Taiwan it may not want to develop embedded memory business itself to avoid market competition with its suppliers Toshiba and Hynix.

Phison has controller IC technology to develop embedded memory products, but lacks its own brand to compete for orders. This is the main reason for the planned joint venture, sources said.